


The Weight of Time

by serindipitysays



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-10-01 21:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20404756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serindipitysays/pseuds/serindipitysays
Summary: Your hair will grow. Your skin will wrinkle. One morning you’ll simply wake up and those things will have happened. The changes are so small and insignificant. But one day, a long time from now, you’ll think: Where has the time gone?At least, that's how it's supposed to work.





	The Weight of Time

There are things you’ll never notice as they’re happening. Trees growing tall and strong. Your hair getting longer. The wrinkles forming around your eyes as the years pass. The changes are so small and insignificant. One morning you’ll simply wake up and those things will have happened. One day, a long time from now, you’ll think: _Where has the time gone?_

The day comes when Rose Tyler looks in her bathroom mirror and realizes that’s what she should be thinking. She should be scowling at the gray hairs, the crows feet, the laugh lines. Especially the laugh lines. Her life has been so full of laughing and smiling that surely they would have left their marks. But they don’t. Her skin is as smooth as ever, a few new scars across her body, but not a wrinkle where there should have been a dozen.

While the Doctor watches television she watches him. While he cooks dinner, she watches him. While he dashes from screen to screen in the Torchwood lab, she watches him. She can pinpoint the day he doesn’t move quite as quickly as he once had. He’s still so full of energy (she doubts a day would come when he isn’t) that it’s easy to miss. But she’s been watching him for so long she can’t help but notice.

As he climbs out of bed he complains about the stiffness in his knees. He holds his back after their evening run, twisting this way and that to stretch a pulled muscle.

They hold each other in the night, whispers of soft words and gentle caresses, ignoring the weight of Time as they fall together. In the still darkness they catch their breath and think of small changes over time. He thinks, _where has the time gone?_

“I’m getting old, Rose Tyler.” He says softly.

She hears his breathing slow, her head rising and falling with the movement of his chest as he succumbs to sleep.

“I’m not.” She whispers to the darkness.

She clings to the sound of his single heartbeat as she thinks of how much more time lies ahead.


End file.
